Changing practices from the traditional approach in most disciplines will require a fundamental change in the way scientisits carry out research in an Open Science Environment. In order for this to be ... [more ▼]

Changing practices from the traditional approach in most disciplines will require a fundamental change in the way scientisits carry out research in an Open Science Environment. In order for this to be encouraged and incentivised, this change apprroach must be recognised and rewarded by both employers (when recruiting and promoting researchers) and research funders (when performing peer review of researchers in grant applications). Moreover, senior researchers must play a key role in this change as they are highly influential in the recruitment/promotion of researchers and conduct peer review both for funding agencies and publishers. The report rpovides background information on Open Science, researcher assessment and career Framework. It also describes different aspects of OS. The limitations of current recognition and reward processes are presented, with suggestions on how to alleviate these and how new paradigms can be envisioned and implemented. [less ▲]

Science communication is undergoing a considerable evolution in the Internet era. Open Access is at last letting researchers, scholars and students in developing countries acquire full access to ... [more ▼]

Science communication is undergoing a considerable evolution in the Internet era. Open Access is at last letting researchers, scholars and students in developing countries acquire full access to scientific knowledge. Nowadays, this represents a bit less than half of the scientific literature, the other half being still hidden behind paywalls and unaffordable by them. Unfortunately, in order to preserve their highly profitable business model, the major publishing companies are flipping the model from "pay to read" to "pay to publish". This is the most important threat for African and other developing countries: the price to pay for reading freely is the loss of opportunity to communicate. A truly democratic future, at the international level, calls for publicly run open publication platforms accessible to all, submitted to open reviewing and immediately accessible. This novel communication tool can only be attractive upon two conditions: 1) it must be attractive enough so that the researchers become aware of the advantages it provides in terms of audience, visibility and potential citations; 2) the research/researcher evaluation processes must take the new paradigm in consideration and quit using the current indirect metrics (proxys) such as the journals impact factor. However, this indispensable change in the evaluation tradition must be adopted worldwide and at the same time if no scientific community, particularly the young generation, is to be sacrificed. [less ▲]

• Purpose This article aims at describing the evolution of scientific communication, largely represented by the publication process. It notes the disappearance of the traditional publication on paper and ... [more ▼]

• Purpose This article aims at describing the evolution of scientific communication, largely represented by the publication process. It notes the disappearance of the traditional publication on paper and its progressive replacement by electronic publishing, a new paradigm implying radical changes in the whole mechanism. It aims also at warning the scientific community about the dangers of some new avenues and why, rather than subcontracting an essential part of its work, it must take back a full control of its production. • Design/methodology/approach The article reviews the emerging concepts in scholarly publication and aims to answer frequently asked questions concerning free access to scientific literature as well as to data, science and knowledge in general. • Findings The article provides new observations concerning the level of compliance to institutional open access mandates and the poor relevance of journal prestige for quality evaluation of research and researchers. The results of introducing an open access policy at the University of Liège are noted. • Social implications Open access is, for the first time in human history, an opportunity to provide free access to knowledge universally, regardless of either the wealth or the social status of the potentially interested readers. It is an essential breakthrough for developing countries. • Value Open access and Open Science in general must be considered as common values that should be shared freely. Free access to publicly generated knowledge should be explicitly included in universal human rights. There are still a number of obstacles hampering this goal, mostly the greed of intermediaries who persuade researchers to give their work for free, in exchange for prestige. The worldwide cause of Open Knowledge is thus a major universal issue for the 21st Century. [less ▲]

ORBi, the institutional repository at the University of Liège (ULg), Belgium, is currently the most successful "green OA" tool, with a compliance rate close to 90%. This is due to a strongly enforced ... [more ▼]

ORBi, the institutional repository at the University of Liège (ULg), Belgium, is currently the most successful "green OA" tool, with a compliance rate close to 90%. This is due to a strongly enforced institutional mandate which has progressively but quickly led authors to realise all the benefits they could draw from it. A September 2015 survey has demonstrated the popularity of ORBi among the ULg research community. [less ▲]

The FRS/FNRS is the major funding agency for basic research in the French-speaking Community of Belgium. In 2013, it passed an internal regulation mandating, for researchers receiving salaries and/or ... [more ▼]

The FRS/FNRS is the major funding agency for basic research in the French-speaking Community of Belgium. In 2013, it passed an internal regulation mandating, for researchers receiving salaries and/or grant money fron the Fund, the deposit in their institutional OA repository of all their scientific production in full text. The FRS/FNRS supports APCs, up to 500 € per article, but not in "hybrid" journals. [less ▲]

Availability of an article on the Internet without any barrier increases by a 20-fold factor its downloading songs as compared to those in restricted access requiring a reprint request. An article is ... [more ▼]

In fundamental research, animal models allow to place molecular and cellular observations back into their physiological context. In applied research, these models still remain a mandatory step to evaluate ... [more ▼]

In fundamental research, animal models allow to place molecular and cellular observations back into their physiological context. In applied research, these models still remain a mandatory step to evaluate the efficiency and the toxicity of potential treatments, before going to clinical trials. Mouse and Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are two very interesting models because of a short live cycle and a high prolificacy. They require a limited space. Their genome is well known and shows a high homology with the human. Many tools are available to produce transgenic mice or zebrafishes. Many tests are validated using both these species. [less ▲]